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Local developer Efraim Abramoff has added a little muscle to a North Side office market.

Late last month, Abramoff completed work on the Edan Professional Building. The property spans a total of 31,134 square feet over two stories. The building features a metallic standing-seam roof and a lobby that includes a porcelain tile inset. The carpeted stairway, as well as the elevator entrances, are accented with imported granite.

Colorful tile work covers the exterior of Edan. Energy-efficient features of the building include double insulated windows. The elevators are based on what’s known as EcoDisc technology — which uses a third of the energy of the typical hydraulic elevator. Recycled materials account for 95 percent of the elevator’s components.

Edan is the Hebrew word for “era.” It’s an apt term for the building, considering the developer’s investment philosophy.

“The building will stand the test of time,” says Abramoff, who is the president of San Antonio firm Ariel Texas Star Inc. — which served as the general contractor and developer of Edan. “I build (properties) for others to enjoy.”

Edan is located along Huebner Road. It is a building that certainly stands out from other properties in the area, notes Linny Feiner, construction manager for Ariel Texas Star.

“(Edan) will always be some muscle on the street,” Feiner adds.

Mix it up

Edan is the latest structure in a master-planned project by Ariel Texas Star called The Huebner Town Center.

Long-term plans for the Town Center call for an office/retail development that will span 200,000 square feet of space on 13 acres of land along the southeast corner of Huebner Road and Churchill Estates Boulevard.

The retail portion of the project — known as The Shops at Churchill Estates — accounts for a little over 33,000 square feet of space in the Huebner Town Center. Tenants in The Shops include Fitness 19, Quilters Point and Christian Treasures. Luciano Neighborhood Pizzeria — a restaurant owned and operated by locally based Centofanti Corp. — is also a noted fixture in the center.

To date, The Shops is 90 percent occupied, says Abramoff, who adds that the retail center represents a great amenity for office users in the Town Center.

As for the types of tenants Abramoff is targeting for Edan, the developer says that the property would be ideal for health care-related businesses, including surgical centers and doctor offices; as well as financial-services firms, such as accountants and money-management firms.

So as to not have to break up Edan into a myriad of smaller spaces, the priority is to start out with three tenants — each taking about 7,000 to 8,000 square feet. Smaller tenants, he adds, could then round out the project.

The Town Center is located mid-way between the health care hub that is the South Texas Medical Center and the new medical hub that has been created in master-planned community Stone Oak on the far North Side. Thus, a property like Edan could be a good starting point for creating a new health care hub, Feiner and Abramoff say.

Like previous portions of the Huebner Town Center, Edan was built on a speculative basis. It’s a strategy that has worked well for Abramoff in the past — case in point being Churchill Estates. Abramoff also built three smaller garden offices in the town center on spec, each around 5,000 square feet. To date, two of the buildings are fully occupied, and Abramoff is in talks with a tenant for at least a portion of the third building.

And when it comes to attracting new tenants, a building like Edan will have something important over many of its competitors, Abramoff says.

“I’m two years ahead (of them),” he explains.

Cuttingpalooza

Speaking of debuts, last week, a new shopping center on the far Northeast Side celebrated the grand-opening of four new tenants.

Hancock Fabric, Accessorized, Sweet Repeats and Great Clips have opened for business at Gateway Plaza — one of the latest developments by HPI Real Estate Services & Investments Inc.

Gateway Plaza is slated to bring roughly 850,000 square feet of retail development to a 129-acre tract at the northwest corner of Loop 1604 and Interstate Highway 35. The project is located in the city of Live Oak, which is just northeast of San Antonio.

The ribbon-cutting was whimsically called a Ribbon Cuttingpalooza because over the course of two hours, there were four ribbon cuttings for the four stores, explains Scott Wayman, assistant city manager for the city of Live Oak.

The Cuttingpalooza was a way to not only celebrate the new tenants for Gateway, it was also a way for Live Oak leaders to snub all of the bad news about the economy that has dominated the headlines of late, Wayman adds.

Meanwhile, another far Northeast Side city welcomed a new business. Wireless-service provider Pocket Communication opened a new store at 8275 FM 78, in the city of Converse.

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